Computer manufacturers and administrators strive to offer disabled persons access to their computer systems and thereby to the software applications that can be executed therein. Several countries including the United States have introduced legislation prescribing adequate levels of accessibility. The applicable regulations affect the configuration and operation of the user interface, in particular the graphical user interface (GUI).
Users who are blind or otherwise visually impaired are a special group of disabled users for whom the conventional GUI is not adequate. For this group, there has been developed several software products that allow users to interpret and recognize the contents that are presented on a traditional computer screen. Such applications convert the textual GUI contents to an output format that is tailored to the visually impaired user, for example through a connected output device for Braille code or synthesized speech. There are differences between the programs created by different manufacturers, but the applications are collectively referred to as screen reader applications.
Many business software systems interact with their users by sending messages, for example in a popup window that appears “on top of” the window that is currently active in the GUI. Screen readers often have a “screen reader focus” that is automatically or manually moved to different locations on the screen to determine what content(s) the screen reader should interpret. Screen readers may be configured to “notice” that a popup window has appeared and automatically place the screen reader focus on the popup window. This alerts the user that the popup has appeared and lets the user interpret its contents.
Some computer systems also use other techniques for presenting messages. For example, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software typically handles many messages to its users because there is a high volume of complex data being entered or modified in the system. In such systems there has been introduced a message log that collects certain types of messages for a user during a session. It may be that the user is entering data in input fields of an application and the application is configured to determine whether the entered data is inconsistent or otherwise not valid. Each instance of faulty data may result in an error message being generated and placed in the message log. A user who is not visually impaired typically notices the change when the predefined field is updated to display the new message. The user can review the generated message(s) immediately or at a later time. In some systems from SAP AG in Walldorf (Baden), Germany, the GUI contains a field for presenting the most recent message in the message log. The user can click on the field to access the message(s) in the message log. Each message may include contents that are specific for the particular error, such as a short explanation and a link to the screen and/or input field where the error occurred.
Screen readers may, however, not be capable of detecting that the GUI field for the message log is being updated. This makes it difficult for manufacturers to ensure user accessibility in systems that display messages in message logs, status fields or other dedicated screen areas. Also, it may be difficult for developers of screen readers to anticipate and provide sufficient detection capability for different types of field-based messages.